Certain Names

We cling to them for luck, certain names,
We mutter to the air, iron and clay,
We hope they will protect our homes from flames
Consuming other houses. Every day

We sacrifice good books to them, like goats,
We sentence little doubts to copper mines,
We shake our tambourines, we dance—slit throats—
We lay our minds, like corpses, at their shrines.

Even the iconoclast. The last
Man you might expect to form a cult,
Can flood the streets with fools ready to blast
Themselves to bits in temples. The result:

More misery, more blood, more martyrs, more
Temples raised to him. This is war.